


Fiat iustitia

by extasiswings



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 01, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avocados at Law, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-04-22 14:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”<br/>― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment</p><p>Darcy Lewis leaves Hell's Kitchen at 14 and comes back at 22. Somewhere along the line, she meets a devil, gets a job, forms a partnership, and falls in love (definitely not in that order).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm...not entirely sure what this is. Well, I am, but I never actually thought I would write it.
> 
> "Fiat iusititia" is a latin term meaning "Let there be justice." 
> 
> Trigger warnings for discussions of/allusions to violence. I'll add more story tags when I've finished writing more of it. 
> 
> Happy Reading.

Darcy moves back to New York when she’s twenty-two, just in time for her second year of law school, and immediately regrets it. It’s not so much that she hates the city, not even that she hates Hell’s Kitchen, just that there are memories on every street corner and most of them aren’t particularly pleasant. She hadn’t wanted to stay in Chicago though, not when taking the bar in Illinois would have kept her there for longer than she wanted to think about.

She hasn’t been back in eight years, not since she stole files from her father’s safe and turned them over to the feds, not since she testified against him and several of his less savory acquaintances and moved halfway across the country for her “protection.”

She was Elizabeth de Luca then. Personally, she thinks Darcy Lewis fits her much better.

 _What a difference eight years makes_ , she thinks as she makes her way across the Columbia campus.

 

Darcy meets the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen during the second week of her 2L year.

_(He’s not called that then of course, but three years later when news outlets coin the name, she remembers a man in a black mask and thinks it doesn’t quite fit)_

She’s almost embarrassed to admit that he saves her from being mugged. Normally, she wouldn’t have much of a problem putting a wannabe criminal on the ground, but she’s a little past tipsy when it happens, just enough that her reactions really aren’t the best.The guy cuts the strap of her bag, nicking her arm with his knife in the process, and turns to run, only to find himself on the wrong end of a fist.

The mugger is out cold by the time Darcy recovers her voice, and then all she can say is, “Holy shit.” Which, really, she’s proud she manages that much because some guy all in black just came out of nowhere like a ninja or avenging angel or some shit and _how is this her life_?

“Do you have someone you can call?” He asks and wow, okay, she’s going to chalk one up to adrenaline because his voice makes her shiver and it’s the furthest thing from cold outside.

“I live just around the corner,” she replies, picking up the remains of her bag. “I’m fine, really. I don’t need to call anyone.”

“You’re bleeding.” Huh. So she is.

“It’s just a scratch.”

There’s a twist to his mouth that makes her think he doesn’t believe her, but after a moment he nods and takes a step back.

“Okay. Just…be careful.”

“I will,” Darcy assures. He doesn’t say anything else and she doesn’t either, but she thinks he might follow her home and for some reason she’s not as bothered by that as she maybe should be.

 

Miraculously, Darcy manages to make it through her 2L year without running into anyone that recognizes her. Later, she’ll blame that fact for why she freaks out when she does get a blast from the past at the beginning of her 3L year.

It’s the first day of classes, which is almost always awkward, and she just barely manages to grab the last seat in the back row of the classroom for Disability Law which has a mix of 2Ls and 3Ls. There are still five minutes before class and just as she pulls out her laptop, the guy sitting next to her turns to her and she freezes because _she knows that face_. It’s aged a little from awkward teenager, but she knows that face.

“Hi, I’m Foggy—”

“—Foggy Nelson,” Darcy finishes.

“Yeah, how’d you…” His eyes go wide and she knows he remembers too, even before he breathes, “Lizzy?”

And god, it’s been years since anyone called her that, she’s not that person anymore, and it isn’t his fault but hearing it makes her feel a little like she might be sick.

“It’s Darcy, now. Darcy Lewis,” she corrects quietly. “I, um, changed it when I left.”

“We looked for you after the trial, my folks and I,” Foggy replies, still staring at her like he can’t believe it. “We were worried.”

“Yeah, I, uh, moved. To Chicago. And now I’m back. Obviously.” She’s speaking as quietly as she can and saying more than she probably should even if her words are stilted, but she can’t really believe it either.

Thankfully, class starts before either of them can say anything else and the minute it ends, Darcy practically bolts out the door. For a moment, for several hours actually, she considers dropping the class and taking something, anything else, but in the end she doesn’t. She doesn’t because when it comes down to it, Foggy Nelson is the best friend she’s ever had and it might be nice to get back to that.

 

Darcy runs into Matt two weeks after Foggy first introduces them— _New best friend, meet old best friend.”_ —at a Student Bar Association event. Foggy's not there because he's visiting his parents for the weekend and also just because he never goes to the SBA events that don't have free food or booze or both.

And Matt…well, Matt's attractive and funny and so she flirts with him because if he's friends with Foggy he's automatically safer than any of the other guys there and she likes flirting for the sake of flirting and doesn't expect it to amount to anything.

Except that he flirts back. He flirts back and damn is he smooth, and in a way that seems really genuine, so she sticks around long past the point when she ordinarily would have left and walks him home and when he invites her in for coffee she steps closer and says, "Maybe in the morning," before kissing him and then his hands are in her hair and he's kicking the door shut and pressing her against it and she's lost.

_(She doesn't actually mean to stay the night, but he wraps his arms around her after and she's sated and boneless and can't be bothered to get up and find her clothes, so she falls asleep with her head on his chest and when she wakes up he's still there, fingers trailing gently over her shoulder, and he kisses her again and she can't remember why she thought she should leave in the first place)_

He does make coffee in the morning and Darcy pulls on one of his shirts before following him to the kitchen. He stays close even then, very much in her space (or maybe she's just in his) while she drinks her coffee and when he asks about Foggy and their friendship, she can't think of a reason not to tell him so she does.

_("He was an awkward kid, Foggy. Used to get bullied a lot. And I was, well I was a year older so I wasn't in classes with him and the jerks that would pick on him, so I didn't see it happen a lot. So one day, I must have been like ten, I taught him how to punch. But Foggy, you know, he's such a sweetheart, back then he wouldn't hurt a fly even if that fly was the biggest asshole on the planet. A week later though, we were walking home and these kids came up and started making fun of him and I told them to stop or I would make them stop. And one of them, trying to be the alpha dog or whatever, got real close and said some shit and shoved me. And Foggy, I didn't even see it really because I fell, but the next thing I knew, that kid had the bloodiest of bloody noses and ran away down the block and Foggy was flexing his hand and helping me up. And I just remember calling him an idiot because he would stand up for me but not himself and he just smiled and said 'that's what friends are supposed to do' and I've never forgotten that. Not ever.")_

The strangest thing is, once she starts talking she doesn’t really stop. She tells Matt about her and Foggy and about growing up in Hell’s Kitchen. She tells him about how Foggy’s parents worried about them being friends at first because her dad was an enforcer for the Italian mob and about how conflicted she was about moving back to New York because she could have made a life for herself in Chicago that came with far less baggage. She tells him a lot of things.

_(She doesn’t tell him about the scars on her back but she thinks he puts the pieces together anyway because when he touches them later while he’s kissing a path down her spine it’s with a kind of reverence that says ‘you’re strong’ and ‘you survived’ and ‘I understand’ and she freezes because it’s too much, he’s too much, but the second she does he stops and pulls back, asks if she’s okay, and even though she says she is he doesn’t touch them again)_

He tells her a lot in return as well. She learns that he grew up only three blocks from her and that they actually went to the same church even if she doesn’t remember ever seeing him. He talks a little about his dad, although he does change the subject after not too long, but even then she doesn’t push because it’s none of her business. She doesn’t ask how he lost his sight because that’s also none of her business and he doesn’t offer either, but something in the way he relaxes more the longer she goes without asking makes her think he’s relieved.

They spend the day that way, talking, laughing, and having sex, sometimes serious and sometimes not, and she doesn’t think about leaving again until the next morning when she wakes up and looks over at him and thinks _shit, girl, you’re in trouble_ because he gets her and she can see herself falling in love with him and that’s not a thing she’s prepared to let happen, so she slips out from under his arm, gathers her things as quietly as she can manage, and then practically sprints home because _fuck, fuck, fuck, she fucked up_.

He calls her three times that week and then stops when she never calls him back and she’s glad he isn’t more persistent because she isn’t sure she would have been able to stay away if he put a more significant amount of effort into seeing her again.

_(Foggy doesn’t understand why Matt won’t go out with him and Darcy for two months afterwards and one night when he’s complaining about how he doesn’t get it because Matt never passes up an opportunity to spend time with a beautiful woman, she just says, “It’s probably because we had sex,” and he chokes on his beer and doesn’t say another word on the subject)_

The next time she sees him, it’s as if it never happened and she breathes a little easier in spite of the pinch in her chest when she looks at him because it’s fine, they can be friends, and she doesn’t have to worry about anything else.

_(If she doesn’t hook up with anyone else for a year, well, that’s just because she’s busy and studying for the bar takes up most of her energy)_

At the end of the year, she graduates (with promises to Foggy that she won’t disappear again just because she won’t be in school with them) and takes a job with the Rackets Bureau of the New York County District Attorney’s Office investigating and prosecuting organized crime and corruption cases and her life isn’t perfect but it’s also pretty good.

A year later, the “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” starts getting more active (which makes her job way more difficult than it should be, _goddamn_ ), the Italians close up shop (which is perfectly fine with her), and everything starts going to hell.

Which, honestly, she figures she’s kind of due for.


	2. II.

“God, Foggy. You’re killing me here. Honestly. Just killing me,” Darcy laughs, barely managing not to drop her phone when she has to save her pot of spaghetti from boiling over. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Foggy replies on the other end of the line. “Next time one of my clients gets saved by the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, I’ll make sure they tell him that it’ll make your life more difficult if he drops a perp and a bunch of evidence in front of a newspaper office.”  
“I didn’t say it made my life more difficult, I said it made it less fun,” she corrects. “Biggest case in ages and it’s not even going to go to trial because they pled out. Seriously, I didn’t become a lawyer so I could fill out paperwork and type reports all day. And yes, you should absolutely share that with your Devil friend.”

Foggy snorts. “Will do. Anyway, Josie’s tonight?”

“That depends. Josie’s like, two-drinks-max, or like, I’m-going-to-end-up-dragging-your-drunk-ass-home-at-3AM? Because if it’s the first, I’m there. If it’s the second, I would like to remind you that some of us are not self-employed and therefore do not get to set our own hours and also that tomorrow is, in fact, still a work day.”

“All of those sound like reasons why you really should have left your respectable, well-paying job and joined Matt and I in our crazy new firm enterprise.”

Darcy presses her lips together so she won’t laugh again, but she’s pretty sure he can still hear the smile in her voice. “If I agree to Josie’s will you let me skip rehashing all the points I made two months ago for why I don’t want to be a private defense lawyer?”

“Yup.”

“Then I’m there.”

(Matt doesn’t join them, but then, he’s always been the most responsible of all of them. She has three drinks and definitely ends up dragging him home at 3AM, but hey, all she has for the next few days is paperwork anyway, so she can handle a day of being mildly hungover and sleep-deprived)

Two weeks later, Darcy’s looking over her stack of recent cases and flagged files and she can’t help but groan (her office door is closed so it isn’t like anyone is going to hear her anyway) because John Healy is an asshole and she would really like to just punch him in his stupid face. 

She’s never met him, just read his file which is flagged because he’s definitely one of the lower-level who’s who members of the organized crime scene. This time though, he’s being tried for homicide, which, yeah, definitely seems like it could be related to his mob ties, but isn’t conclusive. Still. He’s an asshole. 

Which is why the last names Darcy expects to see listed as representation for the defense are Nelson and Murdock.

She considers that fact for about three seconds before deciding to go down to the courtroom to see for herself since she’s obviously being messed with. 

Except…she’s not. And okay, it’s not really for her to judge someone else’s career choices, but she can’t help it in this case because seriously? 

“You know, I thought the two of you had souls. And then you took this case,” she remarks, leaning against the bar dividing the seats from the defense table. It’s all quiet in the room now, their client having left almost as soon as the verdict came back, and Foggy’s huff of frustration speaks volumes. 

“Don’t look at me. I was against this from the second we actually met the guy,” he says. 

And that…that’s interesting, because Foggy’s not a bad person by a long shot, but he’s always put more stock in the financial side of being a lawyer than Matt. Matt’s always been so…Catholic. With the righteousness and the commitment to truth and justice that’s almost annoying because it never ceases to make her feel like she’s not doing enough. So the fact that Matt is apparently the one who decided to represent this dickweasel? It’s fucking weird. 

“You want to explain yourself, Mr. Porn Expert?” She says, turning to the man in question and fixing him with one of her best ‘judging you’ looks. 

“He was entitled to representation, Darcy. You know that,” Matt replies in a tone that suggests he’s had this argument quite a few times. Knowing Foggy, he probably has. 

“He was entitled to the services of one of the lovely public defenders employed by the city of New York. Not Messrs. Truth & Justice themselves.” 

Foggy makes a choking noise that’s probably meant to disguise a laugh and Matt’s lips twitch up (she’s guessing in spite of himself). 

“For the record, which one of us is Truth and which one is Justice?” He asks, and then she’s grinning because she may be really annoyed with them, but it’s also been far too long since she’s seen them and god, she missed these losers. 

“Right now, neither of you are either because those nicknames are reserved for the friends of mine who don’t make my life more difficult by keeping homicidal mobsters out of prison. You’ll have to make it up to me to find out.” 

“I think we can probably manage that,” Foggy replies before Matt can, which is good because Matt has a look on his face that she’s almost sure means he’d been about to say something flirty and while she’s accepted that casual flirting has become a standard part of their friendship over the years she’s not really in the mood. 

“Tonight?” Darcy offers. “Drinks somewhere I won’t feel the need to wash my hands every time I touch the bar? I just have a few more things to finish up in the office and then I’ll be done for the day.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Darce, but I think we can manage that.”

(Her phone rings then—her boss asking when she’s coming back to the office—and she leaves her friends with a quick goodbye and a promise to call when she’s finished with work)

In the end, Matt calls her just before she’s supposed to meet him and Foggy and tells her he can’t make it, but when Foggy shows up he’s brought Karen who is more than an acceptable substitute and might just be her new best friend. 

An hour after she gets home she gets a call that John Healy has been found dead and she can’t actually find it in herself to feel bad.

 

One of the problems with working towards dismantling corruption and organized crime —at least as far as most of the people in her division are concerned—is that witnesses don’t usually want other people to know they’ve been talking to lawyers. As a result, sometimes (most of the time) when Darcy wants to get a statement, she has to go get it herself. 

It’s a pretty typical Monday night, the exception being that instead of being at home Darcy’s in a back alley in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen meeting with a potential witness. They’re about twenty minutes in and she’s actually getting a lot of the information she needed, which, of course, is exactly when things start going to shit.

Two guys show up to have words with the guy she's with and don't want to take no for an answer. When one of them grabs her arm, she acts on instinct, pulling him towards her and bringing her knee up to meet some possibly important parts of his anatomy before she twists his wrist back and jams her palm against his nose. 

And then...well, then there's another person there, a man in a black mask, and that's actually great because she's been meaning to have words with this asshole for a while and to have him just show up is kind of perfect. 

(She's a little annoyed too because she had the situation handled dammit, but at least this way she'll have a chance to say her piece) 

Her witness is long gone by the time the man in the mask is finished with the guys, which is...really irritating actually although that much at least isn't his fault. Still, it's definitely a part of why when he turns to go she calls after him, "Hey! Asshole!" 

The man in the mask goes very still and then slowly turns to face her. 

"Yeah, you," Darcy clarifies. "Do you have any idea how difficult you make my job? Huh? Kind of hard to send mobsters to jail when I have to deal with all the procedural process issues that result from you just beating guys up and dropping them at police stations. News flash, it's really unhelpful." 

"I'm...sorry?" 

"Yeah, well, you should be. Would it kill you to just call in a few anonymous tips to the police and let them make arrests that won’t get my cases thrown out of court?”

She can’t see enough of his face to tell whether he’s frustrated or amused.

“You really think that would work?” He asks, and there’s an edge to his voice that definitely sends her leaning more towards frustrated. “You trust the police that much?”

“I—” And that gives her pause because in her opinion those are two different questions, but the answer to both of them is the same. Yes and no. It depends on the circumstances. 

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He moves to go again and Darcy barely finds her voice to call him back.

“Wait.” 

(If she’s honest, the fact that he does surprises her more than anything else)

“My name is Darcy Lewis,” she continues. “I work for the Rackets Bureau in the DAs office. And I just…I get what you’re doing, okay? You’re trying to make the city safer and in a way I even respect it, because that’s all I’m trying to do, too. But for god’s sake, you have to know that at least ninety percent of the guys you beat up just end up back on the streets again.”

He’s quiet for a long time, but finally he nods. “I do know that. Although I’m not convinced as much of that is my fault as you seem to think.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever heard the name Wilson Fisk?” 

Fisk? It wasn’t familiar, but she could look it up at work to make sure. “Not as far as I know,” she admits. “Should I have?”

“No. Not necessarily.”

“Is he why you don’t trust the police?” 

“Maybe.”

Darcy blows out a breath. “Well, fuck. Okay then. Good to know. I’ll add him to my recent list of questions, right after the one about why it seems like all the major organized crime factions seem to be working together for some reason.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. I mean, I can’t prove it, at least not yet anyway, but there have been some weird things going on and that’s not even counting everything you’ve been doing, so…”

The man’s jaw clenches and she thinks he might swear under his breath. “D—Miss Lewis…”

“Is this the part where you tell me to stop looking into it for my own safety? Because I gotta tell you, that’s not going to go very well for you,” Darcy cuts in before he can say anything else. 

“There’s nothing I could say that would get you to stop?”

“Nope. Nothing. But—” She actually surprises herself with how easily she makes the offer “—if you’re that concerned, you could just work with me.” 

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not? I have access to information that you don’t and you might be able to help me put a few bad guys in jail if you can manage to make your little citizen’s arrests a little more palatable to the justice system. It’s win-win.”

It takes a few more minutes of arguing, but ultimately Darcy comes away with her very own deal with the devil. When she wakes up the next morning, her stomach twists when she thinks about their conversation, but she can’t bring herself to regret agreeing to work with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took forever and I'm still not entirely happy with it but hey, it is what it is.


	3. III.

_She wakes up and the world is on fire, or at any rate the building is. She’s tied to a chair, the tatters of her shirt not offering much protection between the hard wood and the open cuts on her back and they ache every time she coughs from the smoke slowly filling the room._

_—have to get out, have to find a way, please, God, don’t let me die here, please—_

_—“If they haven’t come for you yet, we don’t think they’re going to, Miss de Luca”—_

_—please—_

_The scene changes and she’s no longer in the chair, but the room is small and there’s no way out and she’s burning, burning_

_—please, please, someone help me—_

_—a gloved hand clasps hers and the heat stops, the smoke clears, and she looks up and sees a mask—_

_“I can’t protect you.”_

Darcy snaps awake, breathing hard, cooling sweat making her shiver. The bright neon numbers on her alarm clock reading 3:18 feel like they’re mocking her as they shine in the darkness of her room and she curses under her breath, knowing that she won’t be getting back to sleep any time soon. For a moment, she debates trying anyway but when she closes her eyes and sees the same scene from her nightmares—from her memories really—she gives up and goes to the kitchen to make coffee.

Her mind sticks on the last part of the dream while she waits for the coffee to percolate. It’s only been two days since she spoke to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but she can’t help wondering when she’ll hear from him again.

_“I can’t protect you.”_

_“I don’t recall ever asking for your protection. I can take care of myself.”_

_“D—Miss Lewis, with all due respect, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”_

_“And you do? Buddy, you don’t know much more than me and we both know that if you want any hope of putting this Fisk guy away legally, you need whatever information I might be able to dig up. Besides...I’ll just do it anyway, whether you work with me or not. Either way I’m in just as much danger.”_

_“Dammit, Darcy—” There’s an edge to his voice as he says her name that strikes her as familiar although she can’t imagine why…_

_“—fine. Fine. But then we do this my way and if it becomes too dangerous, you have to promise me you’ll stop.”_

_“How about I promise that I won’t do anything unnecessarily idiotic and you stop arguing with me about this because you know I’m right? That’s basically my best offer.”_

_“...Fine. I’ll be in touch.”_

_“How?”_

_“I’ll just...be in touch.”_

_Be in touch_. Great. Real specific there, buddy.

There’s a draft coming from her living room window and Darcy shivers when the air hits her, both because of the chill in the air and the fact that she’s almost positive she closed the window before going to bed.

The reason for the open window becomes clear fairly quickly when she crosses the room to close it. There’s an envelope on the ledge, small but bulky, and she almost has to laugh when she picks it up because really? Is this guy serious?

Well. He did say he would be in touch.

The envelope contains a phone, a small black burner phone, and it rings almost as soon as she turns it on.

"You're kind of a stalker, you know," she answers in lieu of a greeting.

There's a brief pause on the other end and for a moment she wonders if she'd been wrong about the identity of the caller, but then she hears what might be a muffled laugh and the Devil's voice comes over the line.

"I said I would be in touch. You're the one who didn't ask how."

"Point," Darcy acknowledges. "But next time you stop by my apartment in the middle of the night, maybe try waking me up instead of sticking envelopes under my window like we're in some weird spy movie."

"Aren't we?" Well...not entirely, but she couldn't say he was exactly wrong either. Her silence must say enough because he doesn't wait for her to say anything else.

"Have you found anything?”

Darcy sighs and leans against the edge of her couch.

“You didn’t exactly give me much to go on,” she replies. “I might have better luck with case files at work, but I can’t access them from my computer at home.”

Just saying that makes her stomach twist uncomfortably. She knows what she signed up for when she agreed to work with him, but if she actually finds evidence of corruption or other criminal activity…she doesn’t want to think about it.

“You should start with the Russians. I have a feeling they’re pretty heavily involved in this.”

His voice gets darker as he says it and Darcy swallows back any Batman jokes because it’s actually a little unnerving.

“What’d they do to you? Kick your dog or something?” Her voice doesn’t shake, but it’s a near thing. After all, she knows what they did to her.

“Last night they kidnapped a woman to draw me out. They tortured her for information she didn’t actually have.”

_“It doesn’t have to be this way, Lizzie. Just tell us what we want to know and we’ll let you go home.”_

Darcy closes her eyes and pulls her robe tighter around herself.

“Jesus,” she murmurs. “Okay. Sure. I’ll start with them.”

He must catch something in her voice because he’s quiet for a long moment and when he speaks again his voice is softer.

“You don’t have to do any of this, you know. You could just forget about it, keep doing your job, go back to living your normal life.”

She could. She could forget she ever met him, forget the name Fisk, forget all the connections she’d been seeing in her case files over the past months. She could ignore it all and keep going as if the world wasn’t coming apart at the seams. She could.

“I’ve never had a normal life,” Darcy says finally. “Wouldn’t know how to go back to one if I tried.”

The moment it leaves her mouth she wonders if it was too much, too telling, but he doesn’t ask and doesn’t comment so she lets it go.

“If you do find anything, just call this number.”

“Will do.”

There’s a pause and for a moment she thinks he’s going to say something else, but the next thing she hears is the dial tone.

Well then.

 

When Darcy goes into work she starts looking. She doesn't know exactly what she's expecting to find and part of her hopes there won't be anything at all out of the ordinary. For the first few days, there isn't and although it's frustrating, she can't help being relieved at the same time.

In the end it's not one random file that's some sort of smoking gun. That wouldn't be smart and these people are very smart. Instead it's a series of files with just enough time between them that no one would necessarily care about them, with no obvious connection except for the fact that they were all either lightly pled out or the office declined to prosecute. It's files that are on the shelf in paper copy but aren't in the electronic system. It's files like Healy's that she knows were in the system because she saw them just a few weeks ago that have somehow disappeared. And then finally it's the fact that all of those cases are spread throughout all of the major mob factions...just like the Devil said they would be.

_"Fisk has people everywhere. In the police for sure, quite possibly in your office as well."_

People in her office. Her coworkers maybe, her bosses almost certainly to sign off on such a high volume of deals. She still has almost half a day of work left but suddenly her chest is tight and she can't breathe because this can't be happening and so she grabs her things and leaves.

Darcy doesn't know (or particularly care) where she's going, is running on autopilot, and when she ends up at the door of Nelson and Murdock she's not sure whether to laugh or cry.

She isn't sure how long she stands outside the door debating whether to go in, but eventually her decision is made for her when Matt opens the door.

(She’s not sure how he knows she was there. He must have heard her footsteps stop outside or something)

"Darcy? What's going on?"

"I, uh, I was hoping to see Foggy," she says. It's not the whole truth, but it's not _untrue_ either. She certainly wouldn't mind seeing Foggy.

“He and Karen went out to look into something for a client. They probably won’t be back for a couple hours.”

No Foggy then. Okay. That was okay. Since she hadn’t actually planned to come by, it’s not like she even would have known what to say. She certainly doesn’t know what to say to Matt who is looking at her with no small amount of concern.

There’s a bruise on his cheek and when Darcy steps closer she notices a few more peeking out from beneath the collar of his shirt. It’s a fair distraction from her own issues for the moment.

“Jesus, Murdock,” she says, reaching up to trace the edge of the bruise. It’s at least a few days old, but she thinks it was probably pretty painful when it was fresh.

“I fell down the stairs in my building,” Matt offers. She appreciates that he didn’t make her ask.

“Rude of them to go around tripping people. You should sue.”

He grins and she counts it as a victory.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything actually wrong with the stairs themselves. Wouldn’t be enough to convince a court.”

“Oh, I think you could figure out a way. Although your justice streak might not let you bring a frivolous lawsuit,” Darcy teases.

“So am I ‘Justice’ then? You never did give Foggy an answer after the Healy case. For the sake of nickname clarity, I think it’s an important answer to have,” he teases right back.

She’s struck with a wave of fondness that’s almost overwhelming and it’s so obvious now why she’d come to their office because she needed this. She needed the back-and-forth, the teasing and silliness and almost-not-quite flirtation to get out of her head, to remind herself why she was doing any of this at all.

She slides her hand up into his hair and lets her nails scratch lightly over his scalp, grinning when Matt leans into it like a touch-starved cat.

“You are indeed. Foggy’s Truth and you’re Justice and together you are Messrs. Truth & Justice, attorneys at law, fighting for the rights of the forgotten and underserved. And occasionally mobsters apparently, but we’ll let that one go.”

Bringing up Healy, even as a joke, unfortunately brings her mind back around to her initial reason for leaving work. Fisk. Corruption. Mob ties.

Her stomach twists again.

As if he’s sensed a change in the air, Matt’s smile dims and the look of concern comes back in force.

Darcy starts to pull her hand back only for him to wrap his fingers around her wrist, albeit loosely enough that she could still pull away if she really wanted to.

"Darcy...are you okay?"

She closes her eyes and tries to center herself, to fight against the automatic no hearing that question—from Matt of all people—elicits.

_I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Just say it, Lewis._

"Have you ever wondered if it's not enough?" _Dammit._

"If what isn't enough?" His thumb circles lightly over her pulse point and she thinks it's meant to be soothing but it sets her nerves alight.

"If—this job, all of it. Knowing that no matter how many people you help or how many I put away, there will always be more. That the entire system is set up to make sure it happens exactly that way...is it enough? To just do this? Would you...what if you could do more but it might not be..."

"Might not be what?"

_Legal. Smart. Safe._

Darcy shakes her head and forces a tight smile.

"You know what, forget I said any of that. I'm fine. Really."

"Darcy—"

"Really, Matt. I'm fine. Trust me."

His jaw sets the way it does when he's frustrated and trying not to show it, but he does release her wrist and when she steps back she can’t decide if she’s glad for it or not.

"You know you can tell me anything, right? Or Foggy. Just...you can trust us too."

 _Not with this_ , she thinks. _Maybe eventually, but definitely not now. Not yet._

“Yeah. I know,” is what she says instead of any of that.

Matt doesn't push—he always seems to be able to tell when he shouldn't—but that doesn’t stop him from asking just once more.

"You're really okay?"

_No. Not at all. Not one bit._

"I'm not the one covered in bruises, Murdock. You should really be more careful." It's a weak deflection and they both know it, but he lets it drop.

“Anyway. I should get back to the office,” Darcy says, taking another step back. That’s a weak excuse as well, especially because since she took the rest of the day off it’s also a lie, but she figures Matt won’t know the difference.

A strange look passes over his face, but he seems to accept it.

“If you’re sure. I’m sorry Foggy wasn’t here.”

 _I know I wasn’t your first choice_ , is what it sounds like to her, but she can’t seem to make herself correct him.

“Don’t be. It wasn’t—you’re—it was good to see you. Really, it was.” That much at least is the truth.

“I’ll let him know you came by?”

Darcy shakes her head. “I’ll just call him tonight. I don’t want him to worry. I’ll…catch you both later I guess.”

Matt looks like he wants to say something, but after a moment he just nods. She can’t think of anything else to say that wouldn’t seem like unnecessary platitudes (or wouldn’t lead to her telling him everything) so she leaves.

When she gets home she double and triple-checks the locks on her door before pulling out the burner phone the Devil left with her. Her finger hovers over the call button for a few minutes, but ultimately she flips the phone shut and tosses it aside.

Not today. She will call him, just…not today.

She goes to bed instead, even though it’s still only the middle of the day, hoping sleep might provide her with at least some sort of clarity.

She wakes up to a loud boom that shakes the walls. When she looks outside, the world is on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peeks through fingers at calendar and last update* *winces*
> 
> Casual reminder that I'm a law student and sometimes finding the energy for writing things beyond school is difficult XD

**Author's Note:**

> Darcy's backstory will be revealed more as this goes on. As seen by the chapter marking, it will be multi-chap (not my usual MO but *shrugs*) but I make no promises about length of time between updates.


End file.
